Posted
by
timothy
on Wednesday February 10, 2010 @05:36PM
from the single-payer-system dept.

appl_iran writes "Iran's telecommunications agency announced that it would be suspending Google's email services permanently, saying it would roll out its own national email service." From the short WSJ article that is kernel of this Reuters story: "An Iranian official said the measure was meant to boost local development of Internet technology and to build trust between people and the government." Funny way to go about that. Updated 20100211 9:54GMT by timothy: Original link swapped for a more appropriate, updated one.

Oh, yeah... well how would you feel if you were a country that was just trying to provide the most wholesome kind of social system possible (as laid out by God himself!), and all your people were using the internet for was bad-mouthing your attempts to fight the righteous battle against the vile corruption from the West that was threatening to engulf your poor country? You wouldn't feel so good then, would you?

I didn't realise Iranians previously had no choice but to use Gmail for their email. How silly of me. Maybe they should simply dismantle those laws so people can choose their email provider like in other countries, rather than changing it from "you must use Gmail" to "you must not use Gmail".

The goal isn't a bad one, however banning the competition seems contrary to the desire to "boost local development of internet technology". Outlawing your competitors is an effective way to gain market share, but it's n

They are an extremely oppressive government, of course their goal is to crush dissent. Goes double since they are rather worried now since there was a big uprising recently over the rigged elections.

However, something you'll also discover about many oppressive government is they love lying. They are so used to the idea that their official word is "the truth" that they lie all the time and seem to think everyone, including other countries, will believe the bullshit. Hence they don't tell their people, or the world, that this is to crush dissent, they make up BS about trying to build trust.

We've seen it all before in many other oppressive places, and I'm sure we'll see it all again.

I think it's also more a case of they lie, you know they lie, they know you know they lie, and they DON'T CARE.

Not much you can do at that point besides feel sorry for their citizens. It's a waste of time to catch someone in a lie that doesn't care if you catch the lie.

Reminds me so much of 1984... back when the book was written, most of what went on was considered so absurd no one could possibly have tolerated it to let it get that far, but now look here at how governments can get away with it and even manage to make it grow.

The UN was designed for inaction to placate people after the massive failure of the League of Nations. Most nations wanted to make sure we didn't get involved in another World War.

A proper global government could suspend the member rights of a nation like Iran for their human rights violations and then impose penalities, such as economic sanctions, and if need be, military intervention.

At the very least they could stand up and make a statement. Even if it is just words, they should censure nations that don'

"A proper global government"? You say that like it's a desirable thing. If we had a global government, we'd have to give equal footing to leaders from places like Somalia, Sudan, China, Zimbabwe, Libya, Cuba, Venezuela, etc. These are places where people do NOT value freedom or human rights. Even worse, you'd have all the Islamic nations pressing for worldwide laws against anything they deem "immoral". We have enough problems here in the USA with fundamentalist Christians trying to push their morals on us.

You can't have "global government" and then only allow Western nations to have all the power. If you include everyone in the government, you have to give equal power to everyone. And I don't want uncivilized savages from the Middle East having any kind of say about what goes on in my life.

Tell me, are these the sort of people who would force you to change your way of life using violence? BEING AN AMERICAN, I CAN'T IMAGINE LIVING IN A SOCIETY LIKE THAT.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to run to a closed door military conference deciding the fate of Haiti, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, and a smattering of Latin American countries. It's a good thing we know how to save their poor, wretched souls from their own savagery, isn't it?

PS Do not confuse this with something a conquistador or nazi or British imperialist would say. It's totally different!

When you call someone an uncivilized savage, there's an implication that you find your own society superior. When your own society engages in interventionist wars that have killed and displaced tens of millions of people for half a century, you can't simply ignore this integral part of your culture because it suits your argument. It would be like examining the British based solely on how they treat British citizens.

If you find the "middle east" uncivilized because you think it is savage, I think you are swa

That's all well and good, but it's ancient history. As far back as the early 1800s, Muslims from north Africa were raiding European port towns and kidnapping Europeans to be used as sex slaves and worse, and they were hijacking cargo ships and demanding ransoms. Muslims haven't been civilized for at least 500 years, probably more, and it's not the Europeans' fault they fell. They also took over the Iberian peninsula by force a long time before that.

While I believe that almost every politician is motivated by dollar signs, I don't believe everyone in Congress is evil.

Having met several politicians who I believe actually have some principles (crazy thought!) I can't believe the bill would pass vote after vote if it were truly so evil.

For years I've asked people to back up their claims. Tell me what specifically is evil. Tell me what specific beef you have with it.

I might just agree with you. I might actually make it a personal crusade and contact some politicians myself to express my concerns with it.

However, since no one ever does back up these claims of how evil the Patriot Act is, I'm left to believe this is mostly empty rhetoric. I have zero interest in buzz words thrown around.

I grew tired of Chicken Littles telling me that if you said anything anti-government you'd be thrown in jail. The government is monitoring us all and controlling us all!

Funny, because for everyone who speaks out against the US government, nothing ever happens to any of them. Keith Olberman specifically said he was concerned that his wife would disappear in a black van if he spoke out against the government, despite the fact that he ripped the US government on a NIGHTLY basis on national television. Nothing ever happened.

Maybe, just maybe, we don't have this evil, oppressive government that everyone claims.

- Creates a broad definition of "domestic terrorism" that may have a chilling effect on the U.S. and international rights to free expression and association.- Allows non-citizens to be detained without charge and held indefinitely once charged.- Infringes on the right to privacy and removes many types of judicial review over intelligence activities."

Immediately after 9/11 the public criticism was that the government did not know enough. They should have prevented it.

A report suggesting that a terrorist was likely to steal a plane and use it as a missile was fairly well-circulated before the strike. Support for the war overwhelmingly came (comes) from the misled [worldpublicopinion.org]. Support for the U SAP AT RIOT act is very much the same; the government did know enough to know that 9/11 was impending, and deliberately buried the reports to avoid having to do anything about them. Security theater is [relatively] cheap and easy. Actually doing something is hard. We still haven't taken effective measures to prevent terrorism.

The problem is that you can't scream for privacy, yet expect the government to know everything at the same time. Pick your poison. The public clammored for the government to have more power.

Only the misled public. Which was nearly everyone, since the media is overwhelmingly controlled by people in a position to profit from all this nonsense. But since a certain FCC knocked down the rules preventing ownership of multiple media outlets and even types of media outlets by a single corporation, lying to the public has become even easier.

I haven't read the entirety of the bill. (I've only skimmed the table of contents). But I do believe that it was passed with the honest intent of trying to make the nation more secure for foreign threats.

It was passed with the intent of demonstrating to constituents that something was being done about terrorism. It was proposed with the intent of eroding freedom.

In that regard, the name Patriot Act isn't some lie meant to cover up the true insidious purpose.

The name is so jingoistic it is virtually impossible for it to be anything else.

I wouldn't be shocked if the bill was a knee-jerk overreaction that grants too much power to the government.

>> Forcing users to use a government monitored service doesn't sound like something that would build trust. It sounds like a move to crush dissent.

Hmm - you do know why the Royal Mail was introduced, don't you? (The Royal Mail traces its history back to 1516, when Henry VIII established a "Master of the Posts", a post which eventually evolved into the office of the Postmaster General. The Royal Mail service was first made available to the public by Charles I on 31 July, 1635, with postage being paid b

No, they didn't and the quote of Ahmadinejad that Israel should be wiped of the map was amistranslation [guardian.co.uk] that has been quote way too often. Specifically:

"The fact that he (Ahmadinejad) compared his desired option - the elimination of "the regime occupying Jerusalem" - with the fall of the Shah's regime in Iran makes it crystal clear that he is talking about regime change, not the end of Israel. As a schoolboy opponent of the Shah in the 1970's he surely did not favor Iran's removal from the page of time. He just wanted the Shah out,"

Besides:

Though Iran doesn't recognize Israel, and Iranian citizens are not legally authorized to travel to the Jewish state,... Jews in Iran are not in danger.

Iran's Jewish community of about 25,000 people is protected by the country's constitution and remains the largest in the Muslim Middle East. Synagogues, Jewish schools and stores operate openly. Morsathegh said in Tehran there are 20 synagogues, eight butchers, five schools, four youth organizations and two restaurants.

Morsathegh said Iranians, including Jews, immigrated from Iran following the 1979 Islamic revolution that brought hard-line clerics to power but said there had not been an exodus of Jews from Iran in recent years.

"We are one of the oldest communities in Iran. We are free to practice our religion. Anti-Semitism is a Western phenomenon but Jews have never been in danger in Iran," said Morsathegh, who spoke in his office in the Sapir Charity Hospital, which is run by Iranian Jews.

He isn't just talking about regime change. He's talking about the destruction of the state - that's clear.

Care to elaborate, because the Guardian article I linked to explains quite well that he did not, at least not in that speech.

And besides, there are videos of Ahmadinejad leading chants of "Death to the Jews."

In the video I found he said "Death to Israel" (well, that's what the subtitles say - since I don't understand Farsi I am only sure that the sentence includes "Israel"). This is of course different from "Death to all Jews" and somewhat in line with Iran's policy of not recognizing the state Israel.

Since the real question was whether "Iran calls for the extermination of all Jews (like Hitler did)" I'd summarize that they don't.

Remark 1: I don't want to defend Ahmadinejad (he doesn't have much power anyway, because the power is with the clerics), and there are a lot of reasons to criticize the Iran (human rights, freedom of speech et al.), but claiming that they want to start a genocide is something I can not let pass unchallenged. Besides, the Iran has also a very long history of not starting wars.

Remark 2: IMO the state Israel has every right to exist, but I don't agree with their current politics towards the Palestinians.

It's because Google recently moved gmail to HTTPS. It was an option before, but now its mandatory. Someone's email snooper device stopped working in Iran's ministry of snooping^H^H^H^H^H^H truth, and they threw a fit. Then their prophet-dude probably received a revelation that the country needs it's own "Islamic" email system to be rid of the heathens... etc., etc.

Let's get our terminology of repression straight. The Ministry of Truth, as every fan of George Orwell knows, is in charge of lies. In other words, they do propaganda. Mind control is under the Ministry of Love.

A large part of it probably has to do with the upcoming UN hearings on sanctions on Iran. Iran does realize that Google and China, a permanent member of the UN security counsel, have had a pretty public spat recently. But singling out gmail they are hoping that they will curry favor with the Chinese, and further persuade them not to vote for sanctions.

I think almost anyone with a lick of sense would realize that. Iran must have seen the problems with hacking into gmail from the recent problems with China and thought "Let's just elminiate the middle man and have a native e-mail service that we can dictate that back doors be included for 'security.'" Of course, 'security' is for the security of the ruling parties, just like every other opressive regime.

Of course, the only people that this will truly affect are those that don't have much to lose because t

Iran has already shown many times before that they have centralized control over all inbound/outbound peering. Every time they block facebook or some other website they demonstrate that.

As others have noted, gmail now uses HTTPS by default. With Iran's centralized peering, they also likely had deep packet inspection to log all webmail emails going into and out of the country. If gmail is using HTTPS, a MITM attack like that doesn't work nearly so easily.

That's the kind of thing you read and there's almost no response. There just has to be something missing here. "Suspend"? Do you mean blocked Gmail? Why Google's email and not Yahoo's, Microsoft's, or AOL's? Censoring the Internet builds trust between people and the government (I know, they don't really believe that)? Why not boost local development of Internet technology by finding projects that weren't already solved 15 years ago?

I tried to create an account, and was able to get past the account creation form. It was fairly detailed... It wanted my street address, the company I worked for, and some sort of "national ID", which I assume is Iran's equivalent of a social security number; but then once I successfully submitted that, I was greeted with another screen telling me to send post to some address at "Argentina Square Blvd." in Tehran. I am to include my signature, as well as that of the highest "administrative unit" in my work. It's draconian by western standards -- and would easily allow them to track people with email; all for "our own good", I'm sure....

So scant, it's a travesty to call this a "news article." Here it is, in entirety:

Iran's telecommunications agency announced that it would be suspending Google's email services permanently, saying it would roll out its own national email service.
Google didn't have an immediate comment about the announcement.
An Iranian official said the measure was meant to boost local development of Internet technology and to build trust between people and the government, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The measure comes on the heels of celebrations to mark the 31st anniversary of the Islamic Republic.

For once, everything you need to know is safely found in the Slashdot summary.

I don't believe brevity can necessarily make something non-newsworthy.

Perhaps, but the brevity in this article is due to a gross lack of information which, in turn, is almost certainly guaranteed to promote even more knee-jerk, inflammatory, and ill-founded reactions than usual.

It is neither an empty threat, nor foreshadowing of an attack on Israel (or any other country).

The "punch" is going to be Revolutionary Guard, Basij Islamic militia, and regular police taking to the streets to violently oppress the peaceful opposition protesters who will also be taking to the streets on the anniversary of the Islamic Revolution, which is Feb. 11. They will thus stun the opposition, and indirectly "the West" who the Iranian government claims is responsible for organizing the protesters.

The BBC article gets it right. The WorldNetDaily article and your post are piles of FUD-mongering dung.

What, is crushing a peaceful pro-democracy movement by killing its own citizens in the name of peace not bad enough for you?

>From the short article linked: "An Iranian official said the measure was meant>to boost local development of Internet technology and to build trust between>people and the government, according to the Wall Street Journal."I have to say, I know some Iranians that live over there, and it is all about controlling the media and the information.If they leave gmail to do this, they lose control of the info, and they do not want to lose control.So let's tell people you are no longer allowed to use gmail f

Will they call it iMail?Will Apple's brand image be tarnished as a result?Will Apple try to sue Iran over trademark infringement?Or will they begrudgingly accept the inevitable Jobs/Ahmadinejad comparisons as having a tiny hint of truth?

They're not idiots. This is no different to poking someone's eyes out so they're forced to rely on you to be their eyes, and so they can't go anywhere or do anything without you. They're also sending a message that they are in power and can do whatever they like.

When I click on the link in the story, I go to a site that takes over the computer and says "I'm looking at gay porno" at full volume! T'was a bitch to regain control of the system. Any clues as to what's happening?

"Step one: First you must procure enough cannabis to die from lethal toxicity when consumed.Doing so can be a rather arduous process, unless you are able to grow your own. You will have to obtain approximately 1,500 pounds of cannabis, or about 681.81 kilograms."

You fail to understand religions. Religions were all largely created to establish a system of controls over society, by those seeking to attain or maintain power. Religion is basically a derived set of rules to establish a set of morals, these rules are buried within stories and subject to interpretation by the religious leaders and more often by the political power behind the religious leaders. Especially in the period following the demise of the original religious authors. That period where the religion

This radical regime has no compunction about killing its own citizens, and it has continuously described its intention to destroy another sovereign country. Regime change needs to happen now, or else the world will sleep through a future preventable calamity yet again.

Look, Bush and Cheney are no longer in office, will you stop with the complaints?

Wait, you weren't talking about the United States? Isn't this Slashdot?